Something to Stand For

After a weekend of watching my Facebook feed turn into a battle between Somewhere Over the Rainbow and the We-Think-We're-Righteous Brothers I feel the need to share some simple truths:

* No person has ever had their mind changed by a Facebook avatar.  Not one.  It is simply not possible to change someone's heart by using your profile picture or your status update to say I'M RIGHT AND YOU'RE WRONG.

* If you think that all of your friends share your view of the world, you don't know your friends.  Name-calling and ascribing evil motives to anyone who disagrees with you damages people, and it damages your friends.  It doesn't matter what side of an argument you are on; being right is never more important than being kind.

* It's more important for you to love people than to correct them.  Correcting them is not your job.  Loving them is.

* The world will not end if it is deprived of your opinion on every issue.

* It is usually more important to have open ears than an open mouth.

* And finally, God loves all of His children.  ALL of them.  You should do the same.  

There will never be a time when every person will agree on everything.  We are different people with different backgrounds, different experiences, and different beliefs.  But whether we are pro-life or pro-choice, pro-gay marriage or pro-traditional marriage, all of us can -- and should -- be one thing:

Pro-kindness.

Swearing In

Looking back over my life I can divide it into distinct eras.  There was the cute pinafore era, the perm-that-took-over-New-York era, the everything-that-happens-in-high-school-is-the-end-of-the-world-era... you get the drift.  And then there was that era of self-righteousness that accompanied the BC years (Before Children). You know, the ones where you say things like, "When I have kids I will never let them [fill in the blank]."

Then you actually have kids and you're like, who was that ridiculous woman who said she would never let her children eat cereal for dinner?  See, that's the great thing about parenting, you learn things.  Mostly things about karma and what it means for something to bite you in the rear.

In the BC years of my life I thought I would never yell.  And I definitely thought I would never swear if one of my children managed to disable the entire computer with one smack of a fist to the keyboard while I was trying to print out my notes for a Relief Society meeting.  (Thank heavens for smart phones and google because the solution for that one happened to be holding down control, option, shift, down arrow, and clicking my mouse 3 times while saying "There's no place like the Apple Store," which is about as intuitive as learning Chinese).

When it comes to parenting, there will be a moment -- it may not come on day one, but it will come -- when you will want to swear like a sailor.  And I say this as someone who never said anything worse than "Dang!" for the first 25 years of her life.  (Except for that time when I was about four-years-old and one of my childhood friends graciously taught me how to say the F-word, but THAT WASN'T MY FAULT).

If you haven't had your parental "swearing in" yet, just wait until you're up for the fortieth time in one night and you accidentally bonk your finally-sleeping baby's head on the door frame.  Not even Mormon swear words (Holy fetchin' filibuster!) are good enough for this situation, I'm telling you.

Not that I'm saying you should let the salty language fly (self-control, people!), but if you've ever been so tired that you put one of your twins back in his crib only to discover you just laid him right on top of his (formerly) sleeping sister, well...

Holy fetchin' filibuster, indeed.